exploring past visions of possible futures

About Pedro Amigon

My name is Pedro Amigon and this is my second year in NYCCT. I'm from Staten Island and I'm very interested in science fiction, fantasy or anything else that falls into the category of not real. I'm a big fan of super heroes my favorite super hero novel is "watchmen". I like to write and one day I want to publish a novel. The one truly place I get most of my inspirations from is when I ride the mta. I patiently sit down waiting to arrive at my destination and all my thoughts run wild into ideas. I am also a film junky.

Response : If Christopher Johnson returns, he will return with all his prawn beings and take over the earth. The prawns enslave humans and require them to make cat food or die. Christopher Johnson reunites with Wikus only to remember that Wikus knocked him out, concluding with his decision to make Wikus’s wife and the rest of his family as prawns. Wikus agrees because there’s nothing else left of his human civilization. Wikus becomes more like prawns mentally and realizes that the human race deserves to be enslaved for all the wrong they have committed. My whole passage reminded me of a quote from Dawn that destroying what’s left of the human civilization wouldn’t make it better but different and different is what humanity needed to live prosperous without any evil need for power and this human/pawn civilization lived forever. Pawns turned humans into pawns when ever they felt they were worthy enough.

Dawn Quote of Jdahya and Lilith in chapter 5, Part 1 Womb.

“And you think destroying what was left of our cultures will make us better?”

District 9, is a film about aliens that has been reshaped into a scenario in which aliens are sheltered and a burden through the publics eye. The aliens are powerless, different and resemble cockroaches from a human perspective. People automatically reject the aliens out of fear. The government of course tries to make a profit, by taking the alien technology without the public knowing to produce more advance technology for warfare but fails in the attempt the alien technology is biologically engineered to work for only aliens. Society is completely bias towards the aliens because of how they look and where they live. A poor district that is very dangerous. There’s much symbolism in the film from racism, torture, religion, animal cruelty, totalitarianism, slavery, media saturation, warfare, realization that there’s just rights for humans and everything else have no rights because of our social dominance in this world. In the end of the film the main character sacrifices his needs for the better good of maybe saving a species. He puts his needs on hold for the better good. A film that puts into perspective how bad humans can be and the importance of self awareness, of how many things could be adverted if we just choose to inform ourselves.

“And you don’t understand us at all. You never will, really, though you’ll be given much more information about us.”

“Then put me back to sleep, dammit, and choose some-one you think is brighter! I never wanted this job!”

It was silent for several seconds. Finally, it said “Do you really believe I was disparaging your intelligence?”

She glared at it, refusing to answer. “I thought not. Your children will know us, Lilith. You never will. (Family II, The end of Chapter 12.)

I think this passage is very important because it shows that Lilith has no control of what the aliens to her. It also shows the aliens intentions to harvest a human for their own. This passage also shows how resilient Lilith is towards the aliens that she will not give in to their demands even though she clearly has no say. This passage is right after Paul tried to have her way with her she defends him, Lilith is full of empathy. The aliens clearly don’t care about her but have a purpose for her.

Dawn by Octavia E. Butler is a great novel that reminded me of the 2012 film Prometheus when the reader realizes that protagonist, has been kept in confinement for two hundred and fifty four years. Reminded me of how the crew in Prometheus the passengers had traveled for two years to be awakened like it was nothing. Lilith didn’t even realize she was kept for that long. Another cool moment was when the aliens removed her cancer made me think if they had some advanced machinery like they did in the movie Prometheus. The novel also reminded me of the 2010 film Shutter Island, it’s also a novel in which the main character is distorted from a past event that he starts too see things that aren’t there. Dawn and the Shutter Island novel had kind of the similar beginning. I was really amazed by imagery in this novel best book so far that didn’t put me to sleep.

In the novel of “Do androids dream of electric sheep” a major theme is empathy. In the beginning of the novel Deckard questions the empathy he has for his electric sheep he cares for it but feels that his sheep doesn’t have any connection towards him. Deckard’s job is to retire androids it’s a civil job that doesn’t pay enough for the proper animal to own at home. Deckard quickly learns that humans can have no empathy and become something else that isn’t human like his partner Phil Resch who shot an android because he needed too. Deckard also learns that androids can develop empathy for example; when Rachel Rosen slept with him to prove that there’s more to androids than meets the eye.

She went on, “Anyway, Lizzy was always talking about how there’d come a day and people had to get together. She said it was all the fault of the Spacers because they wanted to keep Earth weak and decadent. That was one of her favorite words, “ decadent.’

I found this quote in the middle of Chapter 14, Baley reminisces about his marriage with Jessie and her beliefs. I found this quote very interesting because it sets a theme of a human and robot relationship, of how it exposes Jessie’s beliefs to Baley. There’s a thin line between robots and humans, and through this quote its pretty obvious robots get blame for everything wrong with earth. The story continues to expose characters being prejudice towards robots. Later on the reader finds out that Jessie was part of mediavelist cult. Baley basically analyzes his wife’s resentment and frustrations.

The novel “Caves of Steel” is written by Isaac Asimov and the story takes place in the future. The protagonist lives in a more advance and polluted planet earth. There are robots in this future that work and are very utile to society but are despised by humans. Most humans blame robots for everything wrong with the environment and for the working man’s inability to prosper. In this world similar to ours there’s an overpopulated human crisis just like our crisis but the only difference is that they have come to a conclusive way of dealing with by how many kids you are allowed to have based on your I.Q. In this world everything is more limited you can’t live on the dome’s that hover up in the skies because they belong to spacers or robots. There’s an iconic dome known as “Spacetown”. In Spacetown the air is ventilated to be cleaner than the earth’s air. Spacetown is more cleansed than planet earth; any outsider is forced to be cleansed by taking a shower. In Spacetown humans are considered to be creatures carrying infectious diseases. In planet earth food is limited and its good customs to deny food to a stranger in your home. Technology is much more different with simple drop blood a machine can see if you have any health issues or any psychological issues such as depression. Robots look like human beings and are built with a postronic brain that prevents them from hurting humans in any way. Robots are built with this conscious ability to make decision on their own and are able to interact with humans in a much superior form compared to our Iphones.

When I read “Caves of Steel”, I encounter much of an oppressed society that had many conservative views on the way things should be from the character having his own religious philosophical views making man the foundation of everything that exists. Many side characters such as the Elijah’s wife had a view of where humans place is and where robots position is uphold.Elijah the protagonist of the story has a hard time working with his partner based on the fact that he looks entirely human, it upsets him the most because he’s afraid to think differently about robots from the way other people portray robots of being more than just machines. Elijah recites a bible verse in page (77) to R of a bible story about mercy, R then explains to him that he could show mercy as well is he no different from humans. The theme of the story is overcoming oppression, it was the only way Elijah solved the case. Julius Enderby tried to break Elijah by putting him in a scenario that Elijah would have troubles overcoming such as going to Spacetown and being treated differently knowing that R’s creator looks just like him, an insane scenario with much confusion and doubt. When Elijah overcame oppression he learned to more merciful towards Julius Enderby in order to make some prominent good of his altercations. In Elijah’s oppressed society the constant threat for survival, Elijah almost shot R because he came close to believing that a robot could hurt humans when R held his blaser to a pedestrian, only to realize that R’s blaster wasn’t loaded.

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The OpenLab at City Tech:A place to learn, work, and share

The OpenLab is an open-source, digital platform designed to support teaching and learning at City Tech (New York City College of Technology), and to promote student and faculty engagement in the intellectual and social life of the college community.